Gayrimenkulün Teknik Özellikleri ve Fiziksel Değerlemede Baz Alınan Veriler

When examining the transparency of Norwegian organisations through the level of neutrality, there are some visible patterns. For instance, DNB, Nordea,

Statkraft, Norsk Hydro, and Storebrand all had a level of neutrality between 50%-75% in 2010. These organisations, with the exception of Storebrand, all end up in the same interval in 2020. In fact, neither of the organisations have major fluctuations in their level of neutrality throughout the period 2010-2020. These findings were not in line with our expectations. While we expected some organisations to have less fluctuation than others, due to early compliance with, for instance, GRI, we also expected to find a more significant difference between 2010-2020, than we did. This lack of differentiation between 2010-2020 was surprising given the increased focus and research on sustainability issues and reporting, improvement of reporting standards, i.e. GRI versions such as G2, G3, and G4, the inclusion of more stringent sectoral guidelines in the GRI framework (Gotken et al., 2020), and the development of additional frameworks such as TCFD (Deloitte, 2020). These findings could indicate that more stringent reporting frameworks and standards have little effect on the transparency of

SRs/ARs. Mowi is similar to the aforementioned organisations, in that the level of neutrality in their reports remains relatively stable. However, Mowi has slightly more variation. This is particularly evident between 2010-2011, when the level of neutrality increased from 26,67% to 47,83%. With the exception of a dip to 48,26% in 2017, Mowi remained stable above 50% in level of neutrality. The increase in level of neutrality in 2011 is consistent with Mowi’s compliance with GRI that year, and is in line with Deloitte’s (2020) findings regarding the link between increased reporting performance for GRI compliant organisations.

However, Deloitte’s (2019) analysis also suggests that Norwegian organisations have room for improvement in transparent reporting. This is also consistent with our findings, given that Mowi’s level of neutrality remains close to 50%, which is considerably lower than the threshold for transparent reporting. These findings could indicate that GRI compliance has limited effect.

The remaining organisations, Wilh. Wilhelmsen (WW), SN, SB1,

Gjensidige, Tryg, Salmar, NG, RG and Orkla, all had significant variation in their level of neutrality between 2010-2020. With the exception of Tryg, all these organisations had years prior to 2020 with a higher level of neutrality than they ended up on in 2020. The most surprising part of these findings was the extent to which the level of neutrality variated, and that the organisations ended up on a lower level of neutrality in 2020 than prior years. In total, only four organisations had a level of neutrality above 75% in 2020. Because the 2020 reports have three additional codes relating to Covid-19, where two out of three are non-neutral impression management strategies, it is reasonable to evaluate whether this negatively affected the level of neutrality in 2020. However, given that the codes relating to Covid-19 are included in the calculation of neutrality, and that five out of eight organisations had a majority of the neutral Covid-19 code, it is unlikely that Covid-19-related information have affected the level of neutrality in a negative manner, in any meaningful way (see section 4.6 and 5.1 for further information).

As reflected in the level of neutrality, the use of impression management strategies has clear implications for the transparency in Norwegian organisations’

SRs/ARs. In addition, there is great variability within and across organisations when it comes to the evolution of the level of neutrality, and therefore

transparency, between 2010-2020. This was particularly surprising because we did not expect organisations to have major dips in neutrality after complying with

GRI, given that compliance with the framework should result in more transparent reporting (Gotken et al., 2020). Therefore, despite our expectations that there would be a more significant difference between the 2010 and 2020 level of neutrality, with more organisations above the 75% threshold, and without the degree of variation observed in many of the organisations, our findings are in line with Deloitte’s (2019, 2020) findings. For instance, Deloitte’s (2020) results showed that Norwegian organisations have a limited degree of transparency in 2019. As such, Norwegian organisations still need to improve the overall neutrality of their reporting practices, as their current practices show

greenwashing tendencies (Deloitte, 2020). However, as previously mentioned, four organisations (Storebrand, Gjensidige, Tryg & SN) had a level of neutrality above 75%, with three of them being above the threshold in 2019 too. Further, despite scoring below the threshold in 2020, Norsk Hydro and WW had a level of neutrality above the threshold in six of 11 reports, and eight of 10 reports,

respectively. It should be noted that Norsk Hydro had a mean of ca.76 coded segments, while WW had a mean of 21 coded segments. However, between 2017-2019 WW only had 7-9 coded segments, this may have affected the level of neutrality. Therefore, despite a slightly lower level of neutrality in 2020, these organisations generally had satisfactory scores, indicating transparent reporting standards.

Despite being able to recognize general patterns across the sample, some organisations had patterns that were of particular interest, this was the case for RG, SB1, Nordea, and Storebrand. RG had a generally low level of neutrality throughout the 2010-2020 period, staying below 25%. RG’s level of neutrality development was unexpected due to two reasons: 1. their level of neutrality is far below any other organisation in the sample, and 2. Rema 1000, which is 100%

owned by RG, has a lot of information and numbers on their homepage

(www.rema.no/ansvar-i-rema-1000/) and even, sporadically, publishes a report reminiscent of a SR. We would therefore have expected RG to be invested in, and report on, environmental matters in a similar manner. However, this is not the case as RG, with the exception of 2016, shows no positive development in their level of neutrality. SB1 has an interesting pattern because: 1. it had no information about environmental aspects until 2012, when it steadily began increasing their level of neutrality, and 2. it has a relatively sharp rise in the level of neutrality in 2018, before ending on a downward trend. This suggests steady improvement in

transparency followed by sudden fall-backs. Further, while the sharp changes in level of neutrality is also observed in other organisations, SB1 is the only organisation that stays below the 50% level of neutrality for the majority of the time period, before ending on a downward trend. Nordea’s pattern stands out because it is the only organisation that has a relatively stable downward trend between 2010-2019. This is the opposite of what we had expected, given the increased focus on CSR topics (Verona & Ferramosca, 2020), improvement of reporting framework, such as GRI (Gotken et al., 2020), and increased use of GRI in Norwegian organisations (Deloitte, 2019, 2020). With the exception of the slight downward trend and dip between 2014-2016, Storebrand’s pattern is similar to what we had expected to find in Norwegian organisations, given the

aforementioned research by Deloitte (2019, 2020), Gotken et al., (2020), and Verona and Ferramosca (2020). In essence, we had expected some, but not all, organisations to have a slowly rising level of neutrality between 2010-2020, consistent with the increased focus on CSR topics, and development,

improvement and increased use of reporting frameworks in this time period. As such, we were surprised that Storebrand was the only organisation in our sample with this pattern of transparency.